Mildura Weekly – 06/06/14 21
www.milduraphonebook.com.au
IN THE RIVERLAND THIS WEEK
Bev Story (08) 8588 7203 or email beverley.story@bigpond.com
GORDON Lawton took up cy-
cling as a sport while he was at
school in England, but gave it
away for 20 years once he got
married and started raising a
young family.
However, since starting to
ride again in 1984 he has stuck
with it – despite a couple of seri-
ous injuries. Now 74, he regrets
that he has lost his sprinting abil-
ity, but still loves to race.
Gordon, PICTURED, grew up
in Sheffield, England and took up
swimming and cycling as sports
while attending Burngreave Sec-
ondary Modern.
“I rode with the Atlas Cycling
Club in Sheffield,” Gordon said.
“My only regret was that they had
a racing section but never encour-
aged us youngsters to get into
racing – today that’s all they do
–
try and get the kids into racing.
I rode up until I got married – I
was 21.”
Gordon said his home area of
Sheffield in England was “where
the Tour de France is going to be
going this year.” He and his wife
Margaret are planning a trip back
to coincide with that.
He says that as an 11-year-old
in school, an IQ test would point
him towards his future career.
“That test decided whether
you were going to be brilliant or
not,” Gordon said.
“The ones above a certain line
went to grammar school, and the
others went to a secondary mod-
ern school. They were to train us
to be tradesmen. Our mathemat-
ics was way up ... we did techni-
cal drawing. Obviously we were
all going to go into the steelworks
in Sheffield.
“I just went there and said I
wanted a job, along with about
150 others. They used to take us
on as probationary apprentices
for a year.”
Gordon said the manage-
ment used to encourage them to
wander around the steelworks
in that year, hoping they would
become interested in starting a
trade apprenticeship.
“I wanted to be a telephone
technician but I didn’t take phys-
ics,” he said. A local headmaster
offered to teach him the subject
if he went back to school for an-
other year, but a young Gordon
didn’t want to.
“Being a typical cocky teen-
ager of 15, I wanted to start work
then,” he said. “There were only
six spots for my second choice
of electrical apprenticeship, and
I was fortunate enough to gain
one. I don’t regret it – I loved by
job as an electrician.”
Gordon continued to ride
with Atlas until he got married.
He and Margaret migrated to
Australia in 1964, where he had
been recruited to work at BHP’s
Whyalla Steelworks, before leav-
ing England.
However, with a young family
he hated shift-work, and left that
job after two-and-a -half years,
buying a small service station in
Whyalla. It wasn’t long before a
chance came up to buy a bigger
one in the Riverland, and Gor-
don and Margaret ran the Ren-
mark Roadhouse for nearly three
years before taking a holiday
back to England, returning home
to the Riverland with a fresh ap-
proach to life.
“I wanted to get back to being
an electrician, so I bought an elec-
trical store down the main street
of Renmark,” he said. “I changed
its named to Lawton Electrical.”
It wasn’t until their young-
est child, son Scott, was 11 that
Gordon got back on a bike. “I
was going to buy Scott a bike and
I thought ‘I’ll buy two bikes,’ so
that’s what I did,” he said. “That
was 1984. We rode for nearly 12
months – just getting fit, and then
I heard that a cycling club had
started, so we joined up.”
Gordon has now been a mem-
ber of Riverland Cycling Club for
almost 30 years, with only one
fellow member, Mick Gray, join-
ing before him. Mick later went to
Melbourne to live.
Gordon remembers compet-
ing in three of the Tour of the
Riverland races, but plays down
finishing in 15th place one year.
He puts that down to two big
groups of riders going down in
packs in front of him, and being
able to successfully navigate his
way around them without also
coming to grief.
Despite never getting into
the prize winners, Gordon found
himself going off a shorter handi-
cap each year – 28 minutes, 20
minutes and then 16.
“He (the handicapper) was
putting me up every time but I
wasn’t winning anything,” Gor-
don said. “The last time the hand-
icapper was so cruel ... by the
time I got back they would have
turned the lights out and gone
home!”
Gordon decided to pull out at
Berri as a result – not because he
would finish so far back, but that
he would have been left riding in
the dark on his own to complete
the course.
He spoke to the handicap-
per afterwards and told him he
needed a 40 minute handicap –
in order to get back at roughly the
same time as the other riders, but
was told “that’s not going to hap-
pen.”
• Continued Page 22
Gordon Lawton is an institution at Riverland Cycling Club – having joined the club within months of its
establishment. Age may have taken away the sprinting ability of his youth, but he still rides about 150km a week.
The 74-year-old spoke to the Mildura Weekly’s Riverland writer BEV STORY about his enduring love for cycling.
Age no barrier for
cycle-mad Gordon
Theatre award to
honour Eric Frost
WAIKERIE-born Eric Frost, PICTURED, had
an intense love of the arts, so much so that
he attended every event at Chaffey Theatre
without fail, right up to the time of his sud-
den death.
And
now
his
memory will live on,
through an award cre-
ated in his honour.
The Eric Frost Me-
morial Arts Award has
been set up by Coun-
try Arts SA and Chaffey
Theatre to honour his
dedication to the the-
atre, and the commu-
nity.
Theatre manager Sharlene Martin said Eric
was a much-loved patron of the arts in the Riv-
erland, until he lost his life in an accident in
2012 on his way home from a theatre show.
“Eric had a great love of the theatre,”
Sharlene said. “Over the years he attended
more than 1000 shows, many of them at the
Chaffey Theatre.”
That dedication led theatre management
to allocate him his own seat – Row D, Number
21, of which he was very proud and humbled.
Now, Riverlanders can nominate a person
who is a strong arts supporter for the annual
Eric Frost Memorial Arts Award.
The winner, who will be announced at the
Country Arts SA Season 2015 launch, will re-
ceive a ticket to each Country Arts SA season
main stage performance for that year, and will
be seated in Eric Frost’s seat.
Theatre manager Sharlene Martin said Eric
Murray Avenue, Renmark
P (08) 8586 6611
www.renmarkclub.com.au
What’s ON @
•
RENMARK CLUB
PHONE ORDERS WELCOME
(03)5021 2121
The Bulk Butcher Mildura
invites all Riverland residents to
come and sample our great
products & prices.
WHOLESALE & RETAIL WELCOME
We supply pubs, clubs, bakeries,
cafes, restaurants, schools,
butchers & the public
OPEN 7 DAYS
Factory direct meat sales
Premium Quality Meat @ Wholesale Prices
741 15th St Mildura (Cnr Etiwanda & 15th St)